During the past three years, even as it has struggled with shrinking tax revenue, the Florida Legislature has dramatically expanded the amount of incentives available to film and entertainment companies.

Supporters say the tax breaks lure high-profile movie, television and digital-media projects to the state and foster the growth of a high-tech, creative work force.

But the biggest beneficiary of those expanded breaks is a multibillion-dollar video-game developer that was designing games in Central Florida long before it began receiving incentives — and employs fewer people in the region today than it did five years ago.

That company is Electronic Arts Inc., the Redwood City, Calif.-based video-game giant developing games at its EA Tiburon studio in Maitland since the mid-1990s.

Florida awarded EA more than $9.1 million in tax credits during the state's 2011-12 fiscal year to subsidize development of the 2012 editions of three popular EA sports games: Madden NFL, NCAA Football and Tiger Woods PGA Tour. It was the largest amount one company has received in a single year in the history of Florida's entertainment-based incentive program.

Next year should be even better for EA, which generated more than $4 billion in worldwide sales during its fiscal 2012. The company is tentatively in line for $14.5 million worth of tax credits — to subsidize development of the 2013 versions of the same three video games.

EA is profiting so handsomely from Florida's entertainment incentives because it helped rewrite the state program. Records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show that lobbyists for EA have worked closely with an influential Central Florida lawmaker — state Rep. Steve Precourt, R-Orlando — to mold the 9-year-old program to EA's advantage.

In one instance, an EA lobbyist suggested a revision to the program that was adopted, almost verbatim, by the Legislature a month later. The change could soon save EA several million dollars more each year.

Electronic Arts says Florida as a whole has benefited from the incentives. It says the incentives have nurtured the growth of the entire video-game industry, which EA said now employs more than 6,000 people statewide at an annual average wage of $80,000.

EA also said it is adding jobs at its Maitland studio and noted that it contributes to charitable and civic causes in Central Florida.

"Florida's tax policies have contributed to EA's ongoing investment in the state and to the steady growth of jobs in our Orlando studio," the company said in a written response to questions from the Sentinel. "In California, where there is no production incentive, our studio head count has fallen by more than 50 percent since 2005. In Texas, which has established a game-production incentive, we have added three new studios and hundreds of jobs since 2010."

Others accuse EA of squeezing profits out of taxpayers by playing states against one another in the name of "economic development." Twenty-three states and Puerto Rico now offer incentives to video-game companies, according to the Entertainment Software Association, an industry trade group.

These critics also call the changes wrought by Electronic Arts in Florida law a vivid illustration of how some large companies, empowered by a Republican-controlled Legislature philosophically inclined to support all manner of tax cuts, have been able to bend the state's tax code in their favor.

"All we know for certain is that such incentives work to put more money in the company's treasury and take it away from tax revenues spent for broader public good, like education and health care," said Alan Stonecipher, an analyst with the Tallahassee-based Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, which advocates for low- and middle-income taxpayers. "The money is not creating any new jobs, but fatter corporate coffers."

Program began in 2003

Florida created a film-and-entertainment incentive program in 2003, offering relatively modest cash rebates to various productions. The biggest recipients were typically large-budget television shows such as "Burn Notice" and "The Glades," or feature films such as "Marley and Me."

Video-game companies were initially excluded from the program entirely, because Florida officials said the state did not want to provide incentives for projects likely to occur even without government help. The state eventually relented and allowed game developers to participate, though game companies were restricted to incentive awards smaller than those given to film and television projects.

Electronic Arts already had a thriving business in Maitland, where its Tiburon studio has been developing video games for EA — including Madden NFL, the best-selling sports title of all time — for nearly two decades, first as an independent contractor and then, since 1998, as an EA subsidiary.